Pocatello Idaho was the site of a Bigfoot conference in 2006 from June 16 to 18. I attended the conference and was looking forward to examining Jeff Meldrum’s cast collection, specifically the CA-19 cast.

At this point my understanding directly from John Green was that the original cast was lost or discarded. As Green told me by e-mail; “When my circumstances changed and I had a limited amount of space for casts I did not keep that one.” In Pocatello, I asked Dr. Meldrum if I could look at his cast, and he agreed. On Sunday morning June 18, I visited Jeff Meldrum’s lab with Brenden Bannon and his daughter.

While Dr. Meldrum spoke to Brenden, he left open this drawer which contained seven casts which I examined and photographed.

The first striking thing I noticed was that all the casts had natural looking substrate tightly adhered to their surfaces. I asked Dr. Meldrum if they were copies, and was told they were all original casts, including the CA-19 cast!

Note that the dorsal surface of CA-19 has clearly written on it “Onion Mt. Aug ’67” in what looks like ball point pen, and “CA-19” in what looks like black permanent marker.

I discussed the copy vs. original issue with Dr. Meldrum at some length, there was no ambiguity in his claim that John Green was mistaken, and that these casts, including CA-19 were original casts.

Various questions now arise from this state of affairs. Questions that seem to me to cast serious doubts on how scientific the promotion of this cast as exhibiting Bigfoot’s dermal ridges really is in the first place.

Assume that John Green is correct. Assume that the original cast is lost. This necessarily means that Jimmy Chilcutt did NOT examine the original cast, and never will. If Green is correct, then “CA-19” can only be a copy. If “CA-19” is a copy, why does it have a sandpaper like texture while other copies do not? Jeff Meldrum told me that somewhere in the 1970’s Grover Krantz and Cliff Crook were involved in making cast copies. I spoke with Cliff Crook in, I believe late June of 2006, by telephone. I tried to get a detailed description of how he made cast copies, but I had trouble visualizing what he was telling me. I was left with a vague understanding that he may have employed powdered female track molds with which to make copies. If true, it opens the strange possibility that the ridges we see on Meldrum’s casts arose during the copy process…

If Meldrum is correct, and CA-19 is the original cast, then Green is wrong. If CA-19 is the original cast, however, what cast did Chilcutt examine when he first visited Meldrum’s lab? Surely a professional forensic examiner would note any unique descriptors on the piece of evidence being examined, such as a serial number.

Chilcutt has never publicly referred to this cast as “CA-19” as far as I know.

If Chilcutt examined the cast Meldrum claims is the original, why did Chilcutt refer to it as being from Blue Creek Mountain when clearly written on the dorsal surface is the legend “Onion Mountain”?

Did Jimmy Chilcutt even examine the cast Jeff Meldrum claims is the original cast?

The bottom line of this investigation is a hard one for the advocates to face, yet it is a fact:

Jimmy Chilcutt, a professional forensic examiner, was willing to “stake his reputation” on his interpretation of a cast he has publicly characterized as “the best one, with the clearest dermal ridges”, for which the very provenance and chain of custody is in dispute.

Chilcutt further misidentified CA-19 as being from “Blue Creek Mountain Road” when clearly written on the cast itself is the legend Onion Mountain. This is, to put it mildly, a significant error for a professional forensic examiner to make.